Fish Out of Water
by Calphurnia
Summary: This summer, when most girls my age are clad in skanky bikinis and trying to get dates with the lifeguard at the local home made beach, I will be inside, wrapping all my belongings in bubble wrap, stuffing them into cardboard boxes and studying. Woopie.
1. Prelude

**Author's Note**: I own nothing. Nada. If I did, would I be here? No, I'd be busy publishing the _Tales of Beetle the Bard_! Also, if you don't recognize the character, chances are they're based on a real person, because this fic. just started out as a "what would happen if we all went to Hogwarts?" type of thing written by a friend. So be kind, please.

Summer vacation: a source of pleasure, absentmindedness, and baking in the sun like a loaf of zucchini bread until you're blacker than a Mexican. My favorite time of the school year; well, at least, it was.

This summer, when most girls my age are clad in skanky bikinis and trying to get dates with the lifeguard at the local home made beach (take one inland lake, sprinkle the edge with a few bags of store-bought sand, place in the sun at about 90ºF and instant beach!), I will be inside, wrapping all my belongings in bubble wrap, stuffing them into cardboard boxes and studying. Woopie.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Elizabeth Goldman (more commonly known as Bethany). I am a half-blood witch, and a pure-blood American. My family and I live in Detroit, Michigan. My father is my bumbling Muggle half who prefers our house to contain as little magic as possible. He works for Chevrolet and was recently offered a job in London.

For three years I have attended Lake Superior School of Magic. Our lovely campus consists of an old college stuck in a bubble and tacked to the arctic bottom of Lake Superior. Our classrooms are old, and constantly shower us with plaster ceiling tiles. Our buildings are rotting, cold, dark, and unnaturally damp, but come on; the school is at the bottom of a lake!

About three weeks ago, after two and a half hours of expelling my stomach contents over the side of a fairy boat, my mother and father told me that we were moving. Apparently they hadn't expected such a negative reaction from me, because they had gone out and found a house while I was at school. Obviously not delighted by my response to this news, they struck up a deal with me: if we didn't sell our house by the end of the summer then I would go back to LSSM. Two days later a young couple came to look at our house. Another three months passed and they were the proud new owners, happily destroying my life in the transaction.


	2. On the Road Again

I'm expected to walk through a brick wall. An enchanted brick wall to Platform 9 3/4 where I catch a train and ride off to meet my ultimate destruction (but I'm not stressed or anything).

The wall and I engage each other in a staring contest, both knowing who the winner will be.

"It's not hard!" My new friend Anne had told me. "Just close your eyes and run. Here, watch me." So I did as I was told and watched as my first real British friend ran headlong into a solid brick wall. To my dismay, I didn't get the crash I was expecting: Anne completely owned that wall. It's not that I don't like Anne, oh no. Her excessive friendliness kept me from self destruction when I first got to Maidenhead two days ago. She brought me brownies and offered to take me to get my school supplies. But as much as I like her, I still think it'd be really entertaining to see her run into a wall.

Suddenly a pale hand comes through the wall and grabs me, almost giving me a heart attack. It pulls me through, where I am greeted by Anne's smiling face. I give her a shaky smile and try to catch my breath.

"See? It wasn't that bad!" she laughs, leading me through the crowd of people to the large, smelly red train.

I keep my head down so I don't accidentally make eye contact with someone. I shove my shaking hands in my pockets so no one knows I am nervous. New school, new first impressions; I guess seeming stuck up is a bit better than seeming timid.

I follow Anne through the train and into one of those little room-y thingies. I don't even notice all the other people until Anne starts introducing them. I smile and wave after every introduction, but forget all their names almost immediately.

I sit down in between Anne and a window daydreaming and trying to make time go faster.

"So where are you from?" a tall brown-haired boy asks. I think his name is Bogo or something equally strange.

"Michigan," I mutter.

"You're American?" He seems amused by that which makes me angry.

"What's wrong with Americans?" I ask, looking him directly in the eye. It may not be the best idea to start picking fights with boys who could probably take me down in less than thirty seconds, but at least I'm making eye contact; that's a small step in the right direction.

"Nothing, we just don't get many foreigners around here."

Oh that's right… I'm a commodity now.

"So, do you know what house you're in?" a little blond kid says.

"House?" I have a habit of cocking my head like a kitten when I'm confused, which earns me either a laugh or a puzzled look from almost everyone in the compartment.

"Houses are like…" He pauses, obviously never having had to describe houses before. "They're like the people you live with and go to classes with and eat with and who are pretty much your family at Hogwarts."

"You don't have houses at your school?" Anne asks me.

"We have dorms, but I don't think that's the same."

The conversation slowly moves away from me, and I'm grateful for it. My wonderful parents forgot that I would be going to school with a killer case of jetlag when they booked our flight. I rest my head against the window and take a little cat nap.

Someone pokes me in the side and I jump. A chorus of giggles erupts from whoever was rude enough to wake me.

"Bethany!" It was Anne. She may not know it yet, but she's dead. "The food trolley is here… want something?"

My ears perk at the word 'food' and I jump off the seat.

"Sure!" I pause, checking my pockets. Damn it, I'm broke. "But I don't have any money."

"Oh, I'll buy you something." Aww, Anne is so sweet! Too bad I have to publicly humiliate her.

"I'll have… um… whatever." She nods and walks out for a second, coming back with an armful of food. She hands me a pumpkin thing and place the rest of the food in a pile next to her.

"Anyone want a chocolate frog?" she asks.

The blond boy from earlier takes a box from her and opens it. I'll say one thing for these chocolate frogs—they live up to their name. The frog literally leaps out of the box and onto my head. In a knee-jerk reaction I squeak and brush it off and onto the floor. The blond boy pounces on the poor thing. Staring at it for second he then stuffs the whole thing into his mouth, one solitary leg sticking out over his lip.

Everyone begins to talk again as the excitement of the frog situation begins to wear off. Anne and that Bogo kid leave, so I lie down on the seat and use a scrunched up sweatshirt as a pillow. The train rumbles obnoxiously under my head. I wonder how anyone is supposed to sleep with all this noise.


	3. The Beginning of the End

Something pokes my cheek, so I grumble and turn over. It pokes me again and I hide my face with my hands.

"Little American girl," A male voice coos, "Time to get up. We're almost at Hogwarts." I open my eyes to find the blond frog-predator standing over me. Everyone in the little room is staring at me; my face heats up and I turn to Anne for help.

"How long was I out?" I ask.

"Most of the trip." She smiles at me and my sudden shift in color.

I glance back at the rest of the party. Yep, they're all still staring at me.

"Did I… talk?"

She nods and giggles.

"What did I say?" Dread quickens my heart rate and I feel the blood in my cheeks. I don't normally talk in my sleep. This is a rare occurrence that only happens when I am very tired or stressed. I am currently both, so this news doesn't really shock me. I just hope I didn't admit that I think the blond is kind of cute …

"Something about revenge and clothing." I cock my head. Anne's face falls. "We were hoping you'd clear it up for us."

I shrug. "I don't know; I was asleep."

I notice everyone is wearing almost identical uniforms. I hug my stomach, feeling very comfortable in my soccer hoodie and jeans. I pull my robes out of my luggage, but don't bother to put them on. Why not just push the envelope a little more?

I stare blankly out the window for the last 15 minutes of the train ride, going over and over my final revenge plan to find and fix any faults. Yeah, I'm a bit obsessive, but everyone has their problems.

Anne grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room-y thing that I still don't know the name of. I see that everyone else on the train is wearing their uniforms. I hug myself tighter and stare at my black Converse. I watch as my new friends make their way to …wherever they're going. I was told to wait for the Deputy Headmaster by the train, so I wait and I don't follow Anne for once.

"Elizabeth?" a voice calls. It takes me a second to realize that this voice is talking to me. People don't usually call me by my actual first name. It's either "Bethany," the occasional "Liz," or my personal favorite, "Hey, you!"

"Yeah?" I answer. The voice seemed close, but I can't seem to find who or where it came from. Movement catches my eye and I look down to see a very tiny man rushing toward me.

"Are you Elizabeth Goldman?" he asks, readjusting his glasses.

"Yeah, but people usually call me Bethany."

He gives me a puzzled look then re-readjusts his glasses and nods.

"Follow me, please," he says, turning and heading toward a horseless carriage that I hadn't noticed before. He starts talking immediately after I get in.

"Welcome to Hogwarts! I'm Professor Flitwick, the Deputy Headmaster. We are so glad you chose to come here!" he says enthusiastically. He starts to say something else but I only catch half of it. The oh-so-familiar nauseous dizziness of motion sickness falls over me. Most of my concentration is focused on keeping my stomach contents inside my stomach.

We get off the carriage and I try to catch my balance. He leads me through the large front doors and into a small room. I close my eyes and try willing the sick feeling away, but it doesn't work. My stomach acid bubbles up with a mix of nerves and lingering motion sickness. It's a good thing that pumpkin thing was all I have eaten today.

"This is the Sorting Hat." I open my eyes to see a huge old hat sitting on a wooden stool. "It will sort you into one of the four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin…"

He says some more, but I zone out. I glare at the hat; it gives me the creeps. My gut tells me that this hat will give me nothing but trouble throughout my stay at Hogwarts and my gut is rarely wrong. 

"Well, sit down!" Flitwick says happily, a quill and parchment in his hand. This school has a weird old-fashioned feel about it. At LSSM we used more up-to-date equipment, like ballpoint pens and spiral notebooks. I guess that may be because my old school is only about 50 years old. This one was built like … the day the world began.

I sit on the stool and hold the hat on my lap. 

"I think I'm going to vomit…" I mutter.

Flitwick gives me a not-so-reassuring pat on the back

"No need to be nervous!" he laughs, "now let's hear what the hat has to say."

I place the old dusty thing on my head and it begins talking to me.

"Ahh … an American," it whispers.

My first instinct is to rip it off my head and throw it across the room, but I think that would make for a very bad first impression.

"An artist too, I see…" I grip the edges of the stool and beg it to work faster.

"Okay, okay…" it mutters, laughing at the obvious fear in my thoughts. It pauses for a second, as if it to take a breath, (for dramatic effect, I'm assuming) then screams, "SLYTHERIN."

I sigh and take it off, placing it carefully back on its little stool. I smile at Professor Flitwick, who looks completely baffled.

"Slytherin, eh?" he says, handing me a few ties and a scarf, all green and silver. "Good luck." He leaves the room and I reluctantly change into my uniform.

"What did he mean by 'good luck'?" I ask the hat, but it just sits there like a normal old hat. I leave that little room and follow the crowd to the dining hall thingy, but I swear I heard that hat laughing at me right before I left.

Everyone is seated, and they are about half way through sorting the little ones. I try really hard to slip in unnoticed, but obviously that isn't going to happen. Anne waves her arms over her head like she's directing traffic and grins at me.

"What house?" she mouths. I sit down silently and she seems to get the point. She looks unhappy and tells Bogo, who gives me a shocked look and proceeds to tell everyone else from the train my placement. They all look at me with more or the less the same reaction. Once all the beginning of term announcements are over, they all walk over to the Ravenclaw table and put money one of the girls outstretched hand. She looks over at me and blows a kiss.

Anne walks over, ignoring the hisses and dirty looks from my housemates.

"In case you were wondering, we bet on you." She says then walks away.

All the other Slytherins give me a who-do-you-think-you-are look, then go back to their food.

"Yeah I figured." I muttered, keeping my eyes glued on my empty plate. I miss my old school already.


	4. New Friends?

I don't eat much during the feast because my nerves are playing hopscotch in my stomach and taking up all the room. A very handsome blond boy sitting across the table looks at me and smiles. I swallow hard and try to smile back.

"Why weren't you sorted with the rest of the first years?" he asks, leaning on his elbows. The tip of his tie settles itself in the little pool of gravy on his empty plate. Not very smooth, but he's probably the best I'm going to get.

"I just turned 16." I answer, taking a small bite of bread.

"So you're a fifth year?" he asks. I have no idea what I am, but I guess fifth year sounds about right. 

"Sure?" I answer.

"Same here; so why I haven't I seen you before?"

Why is he so interested in me?

This is a bad situation for me. I could tell him I'm a new, which would lead me to tell him I'm American and I assume that people here aren't too fond of Americans so that would be bad. Or I could just tell him he is unobservant and I've been here forever and he just hasn't noticed. But eventually that would come back and bite me in the ass.

"I just moved here." I whisper, keeping my head down and hoping that he doesn't hear me and will just let the conversation die.

"Really?" he asks. Okay, Brits must have really good ears because I used to use that trick at LSSM all the time and no one ever heard me.

"Yeah…" I don't like where this conversation is going. He's either going to find out I'm American or that I'm a half blood. Either way, I'm not going to be on his good side.

"From where?" he smiles at me, and for the first time in my life I can't seem to think of a witty comment, or a coherent sentence for that matter.

"I … .uh … . er … Michigan." I say, trying really hard to tear my eyes away from his brilliant smile. When I finally do I feel my face heat up and keep my head down.

"I think my fathers been there. So you're an American?" He sits back and tries to surreptitiously wipe the gravy off his green and silver tie.

"Wha? Uh … yeah." I flush and wait for him to say something, but he just goes back to his food and lets the conversation die.

I don't talk for the rest of dinner. Eventually the first years and I are taken down into the dungeons, informed of the password, and sent to mingle with the rest of the house. I stand in the doorway and take the scene in. This will be my home for the rest of my school years, so I take time to examine it. The Slytherin common room is dark and green. The only light comes from the few candles floating overhead and the small fire in the fireplace. The walls are cold and dripping with condensation. I instantly feel at home. Everyone is huddled around the fire so I make my way to an empty corner of the room with a loveseat and two overstuffed chairs.

A book entitled Quidditch through the Ages sits on the love seat. I have no idea what Quidditch is, but I begin reading anyway.

It's not a very large book, and I get about half way through it before I'm noticed. 

"So you're the little American everyone's talking about?" says a voice. I look up to see a girl with shoulder length brown hair smirking at me over the top of my book.

"Oh. Word travels fast around here." I say, not sure whether to be terrified of this news or entertained by the fact that it hasn't even been a full day and everyone already knows there's a foreigner here.

"My name is Erin MacDonald. I just thought you may need a friend before things get rough."

She stands up and holds out her hand to me. I take it. Erin smiles and settles back in the arm chair

"Er … thanks?" I say, not so sure what I should make of her previous statement. "I'm Bethany, by the way." 

"So do you play Quidditch?" she asks, nodding toward the book in my hand.

"Oh, no. It was just something to read." I laugh half heartedly and place the book on the floor next to me. 

"Oh," she says, not really listening to what I said. "So, I saw you talking to Scorpius Malfoy at dinner." A wicked grin stretches her lips.

"That blond boy?" I ask. She nods.

"That poor kid," I sigh. "What horrible parent would name their child 'Scorpius'?" I smile, but she doesn't.

"I wouldn't make fun of Scorpius. He's one of Professor Vector's chosen few." She looks behind her, then moves next to me on the love seat. "He's also got almost every girl's heart in a headlock. If you get him you'll either be the queen of Slytherin--"

"Or the ugly step mother who no one really likes?" She gives me a puzzled look. I have to remember not to do or say anything that may lead people to believe I'm a half blood. 

"Don't worry about it; it's just something from a story my parents used to tell me. But, please, fill me in on the life of Scorpius Malfoy."

We were still sitting there long after everyone else had left, Erin telling me the complete life story of the boy, including his favorite food, sport, band, class, and what he likes in a girl. Eventually she went to bed, and I could finally make my plans a reality.


End file.
